


Drowning

by Queensquiid



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, References to Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 12:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queensquiid/pseuds/Queensquiid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of it all, Sherlock Holmes is dead, and John? Well, John emulates his friend.<br/>Warning: triggers include suicide and drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> I had a dream about drowning, and then re-watched Reichenbach Falls (twice!) and had this.

### Drowning

Suicide is more heroic than people let on. It takes a great deal of courage to kill someone, but it takes a lot more to kill yourself. Humans are the only sentient creatures capable of self-destruction; and should such abilities be considered an evolutionary advantage, or a disadvantage? A mind so brilliant can torture itself into non-existence. How cruel.  
However, not everyone who sets out on a journey ends up destroying themselves.

I had not imagined I would end up as one of _those_ ; the ones you hear about but you never see them, a shadow or space particles, invisible. You never hear of them until their journey is over; but that is the point of suicide, is it not? They are the ones you least expect it from; the ones who had tried and tried but lost at the last hurdle, the last broken straw of a camel’s back.   
Life has no meaning, no method of escapism. It is a maelstrom of anger and hate, and you cave and cave under the pressure until you break, backs on a French breaking wheel, the laughter of superior men echoing around you as torture makes them proud. 

Is life really worth living? Money controls the world, and what do you get in return? What legacy are you left with? A couple of kids to continue your blood and heritage, a packet from the government until you die. Not worth much. No one would remember you.

But they remember him. That man of immovable ice and a fire that burned like the depths of Hell. But Hell is not hot. No, because the heat would give feelings. Hell is cold and indifferent, clinical like a hospital and twice as sloppy. Hell is on Earth. Earth is Hell.

_I was so alone, and I owe you so much._

I’m quite sure I’m in Hell, because I’m absolutely sure I’ve died. I am no longer living. I don’t think I lived since he vanished, the only reminder a few blood spatters on pavement and dark nightmares that leave me shaking and wanting to scream. I don’t think I lived when he took my eyes with his own, blazing gazes that threatened the hint of something more. I haven’t lived since that phone call, when he called himself a fraud, and a liar.   
It tears at my entire being to know in his final moments he lied to me. I could hear the tears in his voice, the trouble he had assuring himself of his own fraud.

_No one could be that clever._   
_You could._

I swear I still hear your heart beat, Sherlock, tandem to my own. 

It’s not. The doctor in me takes over, and it’s my own heart, erratic and dying as breath cannot come to me and my lungs scream in fractious agony.  
Was drowning ever this painful? Dying is calm, yes, I’ve experienced it before. But I’ve never gone over that last hurdle; the bright light at the end of the tunnel.  
Maybe I should. I am a lost half of a great whole, and I am beyond repair. Why should I remain when the only person who understood me, the other half of myself, is long gone?  
There is no shame in that greedy, obnoxious need. Sherlock was my everything, but I never told him. I will not have the chance to. He saved me from myself; he saved me from the innermost demons that plagued me in the night and in the day with my leg and my heart and my soul.

In death, I can see Sherlock again.  
I’ve not left a note, such words escape me. There is no grief and anger now, just the desolate emptiness that churns in my stomach and heart.

_That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note._

The water roils around me, dark and overbearing, a great aunt and a stern teacher. It pulls at me and roars in my ears, the stone by my feet pulling me ever downward, towards my final destination. Life has taken a lot from me, so much I can handle, but watching Sherlock jump, remembering his last words to me; I falter and fall apart. 

I suppose you could say I loved him. I am in love with him. From our initial, extraordinary meeting to the mundane watching telly together, everything he did made me love him. For so long I denied my feelings. For so long I did push his feelings aside. He never showed me his hurt, but I knew it to be there, in his eyes. When he thinks I cannot see him, I see the emotions play across his skin like dark clouds on a blue sky.

_Goodbye, John._

_Sorry, Sherlock_. I think in my head. There is no shame in fear, because I am afraid. He’d always taught me to never fear; and I hadn’t the need to. I had nothing to fear with Sherlock Holmes.   
But now I was afraid. I was afraid of death, but more than that, I was afraid of living without him. My best friend, a true friend.   
Gone like the wisps of smoke on a strong breeze.

My head is light and fluffy, strangely, and I squeeze my eyes tighter as the last of my strength and resolve fade. The water burns my lungs as I open my mouth; no point delaying the inevitable. If I could cry underwater, would I do so now?

In the gloom of the lake, churning around me, I do not see the bright light. Instead, I see darkness in the form of Sherlock’s hair, and I close my eyes.

_I’m home, Sherlock._

Everything fades, until I am no more than skin and bones and dead weight; a handful of problems and a heart full of feelings.

I am no more.

_Sherlock…_


End file.
